NASA 天文图片日历

探索宇宙的奇迹,每日一图

M41:小蜂巢星团

(原标题: M41: The Little Beehive Star Cluster)

2025-02-25

浏览次数: 20

为什么会有这么多明亮的蓝色星星?恒星通常是在星团中诞生的,这些恒星中最亮、质量最大的通常会发出蓝色的光。像我们的太阳这样不那么明亮的非蓝色恒星肯定也存在于M41星团中,但很难看到。可以看到一些明亮的橙色红巨星。红光灯丝是由扩散的氢气发出的,这种颜色在这张照片中被特别过滤和增强了。在大约1亿年的时间里,明亮的蓝色恒星将在超新星中爆炸并消失,而较暗的恒星的略微不同的轨迹将导致这个风景如画的疏散星团分散。同样,数十亿年前,我们的太阳很可能诞生在M41这样的星团中,但它早已远离了它的姐妹恒星。这张特色图像是由智利的Chilescope T2用四个多小时拍摄的。

查看原文解释

Why are there so many bright blue stars? Stars are usually born in clusters, and the brightest and most massive of these stars typically glow blue. Less-bright, non-blue stars like our Sun surely also exist in this M41 star cluster but are harder to see. A few bright orange-appearing red giant stars are visible. The red-light filaments are emitted by diffuse hydrogen gas, a color that was specifically filtered and enhanced in this image. In a hundred million years or so, the bright blue stars will have exploded in supernovas and disappeared, while the slightly different trajectories of the fainter stars will cause this picturesque open cluster to disperse. Similarly, billions of years ago, our own Sun was likely born into a star cluster like M41, but it has long since drifted apart from its sister stars. The featured image was captured over four hours with Chilescope T2 in Chile.

最近天文图片